1) No. Hate the sin, love the sinner.2) No. Indentured servitude is OK, which is what biblical slavery was.3) Yes.4) No. The soul is what's important, not the flesh.5) Yes

Ooooh...tough luck mate.According to some theists, you are not one true christian.Better luck next time.

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I hope you enjoy flat beer and stippers with STD's, because you are going to pirate hell.

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Isaiah 45:12“It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands”

Sorry, mate, but we live in a small pocket of firmament, under water.

[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

You will notice that the expression in Isaiah says "stretched", past tense. This is the same as a man gesturing from one side of the sky to the other, and saying God stretched the sky from east to west, etc. The Big Bang is continual stretching, not a poetic metaphor, or opportunistic coincidence.

You have to prove that you aren't abusing a poetic expression. There's no way for you to do that, and the balance of logic is against you.

Islam apologists do this, as well. They insist that Mohammed said "It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it. (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47)"

To quote from Quran.com : "And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander."

It gives you an idea of how a different religion to your own, will attempt any bullshit it can, to pretend that a poetic expression had something to do with a current scientific belief. You actually have to prove that Isaiah meant Big Bang, not pretend. Pretend and prove are different things.

The rebuilding of the temple. It's happening before our eyes. Pretty soon, the Anti-Christ will go into the temple and declare himself God. This is the start of the tribulation. Jews will think it's the Messiah and start worshiping the Anti-Christ. It is going to be ironic. They reject Jesus and will accept the Anti-Christ.

Just straight out preaching and lecturing, as Christians have believed every century, since 100AD. The JW's started the Watch Tower to watch for this, because they believed it was coming in, err.. 10 minutes or so.

It says in the last days that non-belief in God will rise to all time high levels. This is what we see today. America is basically a cesspool. it really won't be too much longer before the tribulation.

Pretty much every country has been a rotten cesspool, since 100AD. I seem to remember that USA had a disgusting war over abusing Africans, and tortured and enslaved them. While it was doing that, it was apparently not a cesspool. Your memory is pretty selective.

People have been predicting the fall of Christianity since it started and yet, it just keeps on chuggin' along.

You just told me it was a cesspool, in USA, which is Christianity's stronghold. Countries outside USA, with much lower rates of Christianity are less of a cesspool.

(insert patronizing and inflammatory comment) You don't seem to be winning this one, mate.

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Jesus said that His words will never pass away.

Well, that's a tall prophecy, because you have to wait until the end of the universe, in infinity years, when there are no humans, to tell if he was correct.

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Although, the decline in religion has been predicted for the end times.

Still quite a lot of religion around. USA seems to be full of it, and the Arab states seem to be still abusing women. I see no decline in religion.

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Israel being reborn in 1948 was the start of the last generation.

Prove it.

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it could be any second that the Anti-Christ declares himself God and all hell will break loose upon the Earth.

Wow, any second. Want to place a large monetary bet on any particular time, or will you back out of that bet?

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This is the time when non-believers will meet Jesus face to face and have a choice to follow Him, or reject Him and follow the Anti-Christ.

Preaching.

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It will be awfully tempting because the Anti-Christ will give you anything you want.

I can't wait then, sounds good. Not seeing any of it, unless you count my 3D TV, made by LG.

Preaching. Ranting etc.

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The one world currency will be established by the Anti-Christ as well. You will be implanted with a microchip by the beast and use that to buy and sell goods. (That's if you choose to follow the Anti-Christ.)

If you choose to follow jesus, you get no microchip and you get ignored by the beast and will most likely face starvation. if you can bear through it, you will go to heaven when it's over.

but, it will be very tempting to follow the Anti-Christ. nobody wants to starve.But again, this is just me explaining my viewpoint. if you don't believe this will happen, I can't force you. Just think about what I said if it does happen.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

There is no prophesy about a temple being rebuild in the last days that can be found in scripture my friend. There is also no end time antichrist listed in scripture demanding worship. Who have you been studying with? 1 John is the only book that mentions antichrist and when it does so antichrists are plural and those antichrists were living and walking about at the same time as the NT writers! Stop it with this last days antichrist fiction please. Didn't the writer of Revelation in chp 1, verse 9 say he and his brothers were already experiencing the tribulation way back then?

2 Thessalonians 2 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Interesting that no ANTICHRIST is referenced in the text you quoted. It's even more interesting that the NT writers AND Jesus spoke of and expected such events to transpire during the lives of their generation NOT after a couple millennia.

As with your god, it seems your beliefs don't match what the Bible writings actually declare.

No, I have seen what you have written. You follow a god that you invented from parts of the Bible that agree with what you think. You are just like the rest of the 'religious'. Your self-confidence, such that it is, is entirely based on your believing what you know makes no sense and can't be true, and thinking "Isn't my god wonderful? He believes everything I do."

Since being invented about 4,000 years ago, your god has done nothing at all.

Jesus never existed. He is an imaginary folk-hero. Ever wondered why, in the land in which your "Jesus" lived, the majority reject him? Ever wondered why the churches of historical Europe were hugely wealthy? Does this not even remind you how big business works?

Do you never consider all those Christians who used religion to justify anything? What do you use Christianity to justify?

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Ah, it's been a while. Interesting to see this topic and also to see that someone has entered the minefield of trying to answer the OP's question. All the same, I think there could be better answers than the one thus far provided.

I would imagine that if the Bible predicts the future with 100% accuracy, it would be evidence of divine inspiration, not just taken on faith that the bible is true.

I would hope that you applied more exacting standards of evidence than the rather vague and woolly concept you've expressed here, which - as other posters have noted - lends itself to a great deal of confirmation bias and post hoc attempts to retrofit events onto passages that were not previously established to be prophetic, or were thought to have referred to different events.

There also needs to be something remarkable about the predictions. Saying, for instance, that there will be people who don't believe the claims Christians make is hardly remarkable. This has been the case throughout the history of Christianity - and is inevitable when you have a belief-system that makes a whole bunch of claims that are, let's face it, pretty hard to believe. So trivial predictions along the lines of "there will be people who reject this message" don't really cut it as prophecy. Anyone capable of coherent logical thought could come up with that one. Hardly evidence of divine inspiration.

And of course, "100% accuracy" entails that there are no failed prophecies - which assertion alone runs into a number of problems (RationalWiki for instance lists a number of statements that it claims are failed Biblical prophecies).

For a start, at the very least one might hope that a series of works that were divinely inspired might avoid the kinds of errors in their statements about the physical world that might have been common to their contemporaries, but the errors in which any grade-school child with a decent education would be able to spot.

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2) If the greatest moral teacher (Jesus) in existence was a fairy tale, then the author was the greatest moral teacher in existence. It would be a huge stretch to say that the greatest moral teacher in existence wasted his time writing fiction and did not mention that it was fiction when people started believing it. A great moral teacher would not be a liar and allow people to believe it.

There are a lot of concepts here to unpack, but think about what you're saying here.

Problem 1. In the Gospels, you have a character (Jesus) who is, supposedly, this great moral teacher, and who goes around telling parables. Parables are fables; fiction. The parable of the prodigal son wasn't an actual family somewhere. There wasn't an actual sower who was careless with his seed, nor the guy with three sons and a kingdom to divide among them. But Jesus did - supposedly - go around telling these fictional tales and failing to mention that they were fictional. Whether people believed there was an actual kingdom is, of course, neither here nor there. It's the moral of the story that matters. But failing to mention that the stories are fiction to those credulous individuals who can't tell a fable from reality isn't the mark of a liar.

Problem 2. You comment appears to presume a single author who had constructed, out of whole cloth, in entirety the persona of Jesus, complete with a back-story, a set of fables, a grisly fate and a triumphant revival - and that this story, once constructed, was then seized upon and believed by people who subsequently came to call themselves Christians.

I don't think anyone believes this happened.

Christians certainly do not - whether they believe (as some claim) that the author of "Mark" at least may have been an eye-witness or whether they believe (as is more commonly held in more mainstream Christian circles) that the Gospels arose from an earlier oral tradition about the sayings and teachings of Jesus, and as such, may have had individual scribes but had, in effect, multiple sources.

Those who do not share the Christian worldview have no serious problem with the latter account of how the Gospels came to be. It is, after all, quite possible that people recounted - and the Gospel scribes faithfully recorded - the tales of Jesus that they believed, but that does not amount to reliable evidence that what those people believed about Jesus were true.

As such, this point 2) of yours doesn't really make much sense.

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3) If the bible mentions scientific theories such as the big bang theory, it would be safe to assume that the author is of divine origin.

As per my response to 1) above, it needs to do a lot better than make statements that someone can retroactively creatively interpret to claim that it's talking about Big Bang Theory: it needs to avoid making elementary errors about the natural world. In this, the Bible manifestly fails. It may be useful for some things, but a science text book it most certainly is not.

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I don't know what the previous believers on this site were like, but this is the Big Leagues now. Who can handle playing in the Big Leagues?

Proverbs 16:18, my friend. Or in contemporary vernacular, pride comes before a fall.

There's no such thing as "demons". Uneducated peasants believe in demons. We believe in physical and mental health and the scientific treatment of these. Please try to keep up with the 21st century. (I take it you live in a country where there is free education?)

The bold is your opinion. You can watch people possessed videos online. Demons are very real.

Firstly, the notion that if an online video exists for it, then it must be real, is an incredibly poor standard of evidence. By that token, the Dragonborn, Elrond and Mr. Deity are also real.

Secondly, people acting weirdly in a particular situation does not establish that they are "possessed". Any number of plausible explanations for their behaviour come to the fore: either they're suffering from a medical condition that manifests itself intermittently, or they're in the grip of a kind of hysteria consonant with a particular scenario (for instance, under the influence, guidance and/or manipulation of a "faith healer" and fellow believers), or they believe themselves to be "possessed" with such vehemence that they will act in a certain way in a given situation without being consciously aware that they're doing it to themselves. What such antics certainly do not establish, with any degree of credibility whatsoever, is the reality of "demons" (whatever they might be).

Not once in more than a decade have I seen a good theistic argument on the Internet - so is there any other?

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

People have been predicting the fall of Christianity since it started and yet, it just keeps on chuggin' along.

Jesus said that His words will never pass away. Although, the decline in religion has been predicted for the end times.

Israel being reborn in 1948 was the start of the last generation. When the temple is set up, it could be any second that the Anti-Christ declares himself God and all hell will break loose upon the Earth.

This is the time when non-believers will meet Jesus face to face and have a choice to follow Him, or reject Him and follow the Anti-Christ. It will be awfully tempting because the Anti-Christ will give you anything you want. The one world currency will be established by the Anti-Christ as well. You will be implanted with a microchip by the beast and use that to buy and sell goods. (That's if you choose to follow the Anti-Christ.)

If you choose to follow jesus, you get no microchip and you get ignored by the beast and will most likely face starvation. if you can bear through it, you will go to heaven when it's over.

but, it will be very tempting to follow the Anti-Christ. nobody wants to starve.

But again, this is just me explaining my viewpoint. if you don't believe this will happen, I can't force you. Just think about what I said if it does happen.

Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophesy? Christians who wrote the NT (with their flawed interpretation of the OT Jewish texts) placed their spin upon it, eagerly trying to make happen, what they wanted to happen. More importantly though, those passages you are attempting to refer to do not say what you want them to say. Daniel 9, for example, has nothing to do with a "Jesus". It says nothing specific about the year 1948 and it doesn't speak of the messiah for which Jews were waiting (i.e. - the word Moshiach has no "the" before it and does not mean "the messiah", but rather anointed one).

Your attempt to take vague passages and FIT them into your previous assumptions is in error. Anybody can go digging with confirmation bias to find what they already assumed was there. But that just shows what you want to be true - not intellectual honesty. Furthermore, unless you have situation specific descriptions then you don't have a prophesy. Prophesies need to be non-vague (as in, they can only be interpreted one way). They have to be precise and can only be fulfilled by one event. But you don't have this with your bible. "He pierced my side" isn't a prophesy (for example) because anyone reading that text (like you reading the NT now) can MOLD it into saying what you want it to say (after the fact). You need specifics for true prophesy, not vague generalities that can be reinterpreted.

Besides that, predictions are not prophesies. If I say there will be a war within the next 10 years, is that a prophesy? You are clearly coming to the text of the bible with your own strong confirmation bias - and it is a bias toward your personal interpretation of it. But that's not going to get you closer to the truth.

It says in the last days that non-belief in God will rise to all time high levels. This is what we see today. America is basically a cesspool. it really won't be too much longer before the tribulation.

Are you really that gullible to think that a vague statement such as "non-belief in God will rise" is from a divine source? Really? Think about it dude. Anyone can make statements like this, yet you wouldn't believe them if they claimed to be divine. The only reason you are taking the bible's word for it is because someone conned you into thinking "it's the Word of God". Had that idea not been implanted into your brain you wouldn't be trying to argue this way for it (b/c you could clearly see that this kind of reasoning is nonsense).

Let's compare these:

Bible: "There will be wars and rumors of wars"

Me: "America will withdraw troops from a desert nation"

Bible: "Non-belief will rise"

Me: "Science and technology will advance rapidly"

Bible: "Many people will not love each other"

Me: "Wealthy men will give charitably to poor communities around the world"

Do you believe me? Are my words prophesies? If they come to pass, will you believe my words are from divine origin? See how you've assumed your bible in advance? You are committed to your interpretation of it no matter what and that is the problem. This OP is asking you to DEMONSTRATE how you think you know the bible is the word of God - not to just assume it. Ultra vague predictions just don't get you there (just like they don't do anything to make other religions true either).

Christians who wrote the NT (with their flawed interpretation of the OT Jewish texts) placed their spin upon it, eagerly trying to make happen, what they wanted to happen.

What do you think motivated them to do this? What did they hope to gain?

The same kind of gain that nearly every religious person gets from spin that comes from credulity and gullibility - the psychological satisfaction of thinking "I'm on the right path" (the making of one to feel comfortable). We're not talking deliberate conspiracy here (in case that's where you were going with this question). History has shown us that it doesn't take much for people to be sucked into superstition and believe nonsense uncritically. That same drive of, "I just have to know right now!" hasn't changed and this weakness has been exploited (and/or unchecked) by hundreds of man-made religions. Christianity is no exception.

Christians who wrote the NT (with their flawed interpretation of the OT Jewish texts) placed their spin upon it, eagerly trying to make happen, what they wanted to happen.

What do you think motivated them to do this? What did they hope to gain?

The same kind of gain that nearly every religious person gets from spin that comes from credulity and gullibility - the psychological satisfaction of thinking "I'm on the right path" (the making of one to feel comfortable). We're not talking deliberate conspiracy here (in case that's where you were going with this question). History has shown us that it doesn't take much for people to be sucked into superstition and believe nonsense uncritically. That same drive of, "I just have to know right now!" hasn't changed and this weakness has been exploited (and/or unchecked) by hundreds of man-made religions. Christianity is no exception.

So did they genuinely believe what they were writing, or were they most definitely, deliberately embellishing or "spinning"?

Well, I've been missing a good thread while I have been away on holiday. I'm back now, though, and have a question for anyone would would like to support biblical prophecy. I'm sure Skeptic would like to answer this one.

Ezekiel 29:8-12

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Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.[5]

When did that happen?

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No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)